San Diego County is wet again as would be typical for this time of year. The unseasonably dry, pleasant weather disappeared this week. As recently as February 9, the high temperature in my neighborhood of University Heights reached 28 degrees Celsius (82 Fahrenheit). Today: 14 C (58 F). Some sun early day surrendered to torrential rainfall by mid-afternoon.
The turnaround caused hardship for one of my neighbors, who rang the doorbell around 3:30 p.m. PST. He asked for a ride to his car, which spun out of control on the slick asphalt into a ditch. He expected a tow truck in about 45 minutes (yeah AAA). What perplexed me: Why wasn’t he with the vehicle? Meaning: How did he get home?
A good Samaritan witnessed the incident, stopped to see if my neighbor was injured, and offered to give him a lift home. I gladly drove him down Texas Street into Mission Valley to meet the tow truck. But we couldn’t find his car. Poof. Vanished. We assumed the tow truck arrived sooner and hauled off the vehicle. But a call to AAA led to an unexpected revelation: The tow truck driver couldn’t find the disabled automobile either.
My neighbor planned to file a police report soon as he returned home. I don’t yet know the outcome. He speculated that the good Samaritan did more than help; he helped himself to the Mustang.
Other possibilities: Someone else stole the car; police impounded the vehicle for being a traffic hazard; a trolling tow truck snatched up an abandoned car, by a company that profits from imposing costly fees, including storage; the AAA tower took the vehicle, which is still stolen or legitimately misplaced due to clerical error.
I used Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra to shoot the Featured Image, soon after returning home from the failed car retrieval. Vitals: f/1.9, ISO 160. 1/60 sec, 13mm (film equivalent); 5:35 p.m. The drops-on-glass photo is composed as captured. In Microsoft Photos, I applied the Golden filter.